I love Federico Fellini, but I dread his early works like La Strada because they are so sad. Poor Giulietta Masina, one of the greatest film actresses of all time, she always gets the short end of the stick and because the movie magic is so intense, our heart breaks right along with her.
Fellini is the Great Director Italian style. I don't mean he isn't the greatest director, better than Hitchcock, Welles, a modern like Scorcese. I'm looking at his work, have seen most of them, and I can't make up my mind. He might be the greatest that ever lived. His films in black and white, the Neo-Realism of Italian film after the war, the incredible original vision, the writing, and directing, it's as though Michelangelo came back as a director.
Masina is a prostitute, but her loves turn out to be pocketbook grabbers. Her physical well being is not high on her boyfriend's priority list. She's such a little women, frail, and in Nights she plays a tough, brawling, whimsical, and hopeless romantic. Her acting style is over the top, almost carnival character as she had played it in La Strada, but as Cabiria, she's older, but not necessarily wiser. The final revelation with French actor François Périer is so heart rendering because after an hour and a half of Cabiria's, laughter, trials, and disappointments, we identify with her completely. And then, in one last scene, the carnival returns with hope.
There is so much more to say about this film. You could write a book.
Fellini is the Great Director Italian style. I don't mean he isn't the greatest director, better than Hitchcock, Welles, a modern like Scorcese. I'm looking at his work, have seen most of them, and I can't make up my mind. He might be the greatest that ever lived. His films in black and white, the Neo-Realism of Italian film after the war, the incredible original vision, the writing, and directing, it's as though Michelangelo came back as a director.
Masina is a prostitute, but her loves turn out to be pocketbook grabbers. Her physical well being is not high on her boyfriend's priority list. She's such a little women, frail, and in Nights she plays a tough, brawling, whimsical, and hopeless romantic. Her acting style is over the top, almost carnival character as she had played it in La Strada, but as Cabiria, she's older, but not necessarily wiser. The final revelation with French actor François Périer is so heart rendering because after an hour and a half of Cabiria's, laughter, trials, and disappointments, we identify with her completely. And then, in one last scene, the carnival returns with hope.
There is so much more to say about this film. You could write a book.